


There Will Come Soft Rains

by immapoisonyou



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29799255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immapoisonyou/pseuds/immapoisonyou
Kudos: 1





	There Will Come Soft Rains

Statement number 0191304  
Statement written by Sara Teasdale about a letter she found

Statement begins.

I heard of your institute online, because of a YouTube channel that stopped, sadly, i used to love their videos. I don’t remember the name however.  
I’m an urban explorer. I know it's not technically legal but it's my passion. I take photos and amateurs are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to get. It’s a hard job, not gonna lie, but it's a good one and i have fun and that's what counts right?  
On March 31st, someone called me, she named herself Rose, no last name given. Her voice was hoarse and she was hard to understand and i had to make her repeat quite a few times. She told me about Allendale, in Solano County. It's near Vacaville but you can easily miss it if you're not actively looking for it.  
When I arrived at the place Rose told me about, there was only a wall in the middle of a field of dry earth, nothing grew back and I felt a tingling sensation, like a murmur that I couldn't quite make out. It was like a blasted heat but nothing ever grew back except for a few malformed shrubs and weeds with weird patterns on them.  
After like barely a minute of walk, I reached the wall. I was facing what I assumed must be an interior wall, with the wallpaper. It had a strange mushroom pattern. It kinda looked like a mushroom cloud? You know like those that appear after a nuclear explosion? The wallpaper was torn apart on multiple parts and some form of dry mold was growing on it and I quickly took a picture. The other side of the wall was black, except for one difform shape. If I looked hard enough, it seemed like a woman, sitting, bent over a table. At her feet was a dog. It was laying down.  
I heard the whisper again, more clearly now, i couldn’t quite make out what it was saying tho. I think it mumbled something about soft rains? I don't know to be honest.  
As i got closer i could see on the ground there were two pages stapled together, on top of what looked like a pile of very burnt wood. It seemed like the paper should’ve burnt with it but it didn't, for some reasons. The shadow of the woman was holding something, an envelope. I took it and it came off very easily, with little to no resistance, like if it was waiting or someone to pick it up.  
I took the pages and the letter and put them in my bag for safekeeping. I took like 12 pictures of the weird form and then went home.  
When i arrived home, it was weird. No one was here. There was no sound at all. Nothing. Complete silence. I take the stairs cause I’m only on the third floor of seven.  
I panicked when I saw them. It was like on that wall. A reversed shadow. Walls of reversed shadows. Couples holding hands, people carrying their grocery bags. Kids running. Worried parents a little after. Images of people, frozen in time.  
I ran through the empty corridors, screaming for someone to hear me. I bashed through the door of my neighbours, a loud family. Three kids and two exhausted mothers. I used to be annoyed by the noise they make, now I surprised myself that I miss it. I miss hearing sibling playing together like I was with my sibling. They were my only friend for a long long time.  
I bashed through the door with fearful tears rolling down my cheeks. The door slammed open and I crashed onto the floor. There they were again. Those shadows of a paused moment. The children were playing. The mothers in the kitchen, kissing each other in an eternal second of bliss. I ran outside, unlocked my door and bolted to my desk.  
The pages were dry, old and yellowed by time. It was a copy of “There Will Come Soft Rains”, the story by Ray Bradbury. The same sensation washed through my body as I read through the story. I read it in college for a class about tropes.  
The letter cried for help from someone named Rose. She describes how her house gets destroyed in the same way as the house in Bradbury’s novel. A dog came to her house and died at her feet, not before biting her fatally, she only had the time to write this letter before succumbing. The whisper was clearer now, it was a laugh, a cruel laugh. I tried to burn the letter and the pages. I tried countless times. Then I thought of coming to this institute to give my statement. Something must’ve compelled me. 

Statement ends.  
“There Will Come Soft Rains” is also the name of a poem written by another Sara Teasdale. It’s clearly not the same person as the statement giver but an interesting fact to point out. We couldn’t organize a follow up interview as Miss Teasdale. Her apartment was destroyed by unknown means. There is no mention anywhere of even an apartment standing there if not for a single wall, presenting a woman, laying on a table with a dog at her feets. The letter and the two stapled pages found on the site are now locked in the artifact storage.


End file.
